Across the Universe
by Fathomless83
Summary: Mulder calls out, across the universe, to his son post-Babylon.


Across the Universe.

By Fathomless83

Disclaimer: These amazing characters belong to Chris Carter and 1013. Song 'Ho Hey' belongs to The Lumineers.

Spoilers: Everywhere up to, and including, 'Babylon'.

Chapter One.

With a soft thud, William drops his school books on the kitchen table. It's been a long day. School is uncomfortable and exhausting for him. He knows he doesn't conform.

"Will?"

He turns to face his adoptive mother and shoots her a smile. A social norm he knows she expects and needs from him. Years of preoccupied behaviour, evidence of a photographic memory, high intelligence and complex communication eventually led the Van De Kamp's reluctantly to seek out a diagnosis of high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Will knows this label doesn't fit him properly, but he likes the allowances this diagnosis affords him.

"Will?' his adoptive mother asks again only to be interrupted by her husband.

"Martha, leave the poor boy alone. Give him some space. He just got home."

Will nods curtly in his adoptive father's direction and picks up his school bag, before heading out the door of the farmhouse. To a passer-by his lanky gait and soulful brown eyes would seem elegantly misplaced in this rural environment. He runs a hand through an unruly head of brown hair, as he steals a breath.

He constantly feels a presence in his soul. Is it God he wonders? Would God feel so desperate and lost? Perhaps he would have given the current global state of affairs? It's a pulling feeling, like he's supposed somewhere. Will just doesn't seem to know where?

When he arrives at his 'thinking spot', a place hidden from the farmhouse's view, Will retrieves an old iPod given to him illicitly by his friend Matt. The Van De Kamp's don't listen to 'that sort of music'. He places the iPod by his side and pauses to just listen to the world around him.

Will's mind wanders to his parents. His biological parents. Who are they? Where are they? His adoptive mother has always assured him that he was given up by a desperate, single mother. That his life, as well as his mother's, is better due to the adoption. His adoptive father is more candid. Will is smart. Too smart for his own good. Will's parents were clearly bright too, he concurs. He often lies awake at night wondering, as his wife once did, why William's parents gave him up. What terrible tragedy had befallen them?

One night, when Will was about ten years old, he had snuck out of his house and watched the Star Wars movies at his friend Matt's house. He'd felt an absurd affinity for Luke Skywalker and 'The Force'. It was eerie and Will brushed it off as wishful thinking. This is not Tatooine, he forcefully reminds himself.

Will sticks his headphones in his ears and lays back on the earth. His eyes scan the sky, searching, although for what he's not sure?

(Ho!)

(Hey!)

(Ho!)

(Hey!)

(Ho!) I've been trying to do it right

(Hey!) I've been living a lonely life

(Ho!) I've been sleeping here instead

(Hey!) I've been sleeping in my bed,

(Ho!) Sleeping in my bed

(Hey!)

(Ho!)

(Ho!) So show me family

(Hey!) All the blood that I would bleed

(Ho!) I don't know where I belong

(Hey!) I don't know where I went wrong

(Ho!) But I can write a song

(Hey!)

WILLIAM.

His name crashes over him, echoing as though it has been yelled into the abyss. Will pulls his headphones from his ears and sits bolt upright, a sweat forming on his brow. Someone is calling to him. Searching for him. Desperately searching for him. He shakes his head. The intensity of the feeling is crushing.

WILLIAM.

His name pounds at his mind, like an impatient visitor at the front door. An image of a man plays in his mind. A man sitting on the porch of a farmhouse very similar to the one he lives in. A man with a profile that so unmistakably mirrors his own that Will gasps in recognition. The man in his mind seems to somehow see him too and their eyes lock. They stare at each other across the void for a moment, immediately recognising the other for who they are.

I'M HERE.

Will sends out his location like a beacon into the night sky.

I'M HERE. I'M HERE. I'M HERE.

With a thundering heart Will waits for what seems like an eternity for a response and then he hears it, loud and clear, so determined and certain that it's conviction frightens him.

I'M COMING.

End Chapter One. Please review.


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